Alana, Patricia and I went down to a new studio in LA called the HUB to see Doug Keller.
I came across Doug Keller's writings while doing bandha research and liked his ideas. So tonight we went to meet him. He is totally dear and present. He is scheduled to be at Lulu's in the fall.
In general, men seem teach so differently than women. With men, there is a very strong, "We are going to do this. We are doing it. There, we did it."
Doug is awesome. Yet the pace and the amount he talked could have been cut in half for me. Just as I was getting baked in, the exercise would be done. I am slow country paced gal. And I like very little instruction and lots of space to absorb.
His opening talk was great. Mainly about cultivating the prana in the body. I would have like to have listened to him talk more. I took no notes. But I will be researching "soma".
The Asana Practice focused mainly on opening the pelvis. So Hips and Hamstrings.
He began with a little lungey anusara kind of warm up.
Then he talked about the shoulders helped us get thinking about them.
In the Lungey salutes, worked in some Warrior 1 play.
Eventually had us turn sideways on our mats and worked towards open hip standing poses.
In Warrior 2 he had us lifting up the front heal to help open the hip. This was Awesome.
We explored tricks to help open the shoulder in side angle pose and played allot with opening the back of the pelvis in triangle and half moon.
We played with understanding the "half mooon" muscle of the butt.
We played with partners pressing in extended ankle in half moon.
He knows so much, that i imagine it is difficult to distill into ta tiny little workshop. And it seems that he could be so much more effective if he shared even less.
We did some cool stuff with Utthita Hasta Pandguthasana Supine. Playing with the strap and working the front hip forward and across.
We played with partners holding a strap around the extended leg in this positioning.
We played with partners helping to cultivate the inner line of the leg in seated spinal twist (M3).
We played with partners with UHP supine to get inner line of leg.
We played with a Strap with Supine Upward Facing Upavista Konasana and Seated UK.
We played with Baddha Konasana with Partners
Some Spinal Twisting
Eagle Wrap this way and that
Savasana
BREAK
Pranayama Practice
Again, he knows so much. I was feeling too broke to buy his workbooks. Also, there is so much sitting next to my bed that I have not yet read.
We began with a "Wave Breath Exercise"
I totally dug this.
We layed over some heart opening support.
We treated the breath like waves inhaling a little more at the time (allowing for little exhales) until breath was full and then a smooth full exhale.
Then the reverse.
At point he said "like every cell is breathing" and it really did feel like my whole body was breathing.
Then we sat up and did a Lotus Visualization Breathing. At one point he said something like "as if the earth was inhaling for you". I loved this. Again, i got deep so quick that as he continued to speak i could not understand why.
He talked about the different doshas and what they are drawn too. Kapha: courage and love. Pitta: joy and wonderment. Vata: peace and something like stability. He talked about finding the breath in the shushumna. He had a lot to say.
The we did a Bhastrika which was super amazing. And as he led us through a chakra meditation , i tuned him out cuz what i was experiencing was groovy enough.
Then savasana.
The space was very urban. we are so lucky. that was our mantra all the way home. "we are so lucky. we are so lucky. we are so lucky"
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